Team Building Activities

I work at a very large corporate organization and we recently adopted some new things in the area of team building. My manager came to me and told me that we were going to try to strengthen the teams in our department. Normally we try to strengthen the group by having a picnic and going to the movies or playing a softball game. In my opinion these activities did improve morale but since we started using a number of different team building activities my ideas of what team building and morale building has changed. The games we used to play and the activities we used to take part in were nothing more than a break from the daily grind of our jobs. True team building activities work wonders and do more than just allow the employees some time to relax and chat about meaningless things.

The team building activities that we have been taking part in have helped to instill the company's values in our mind by allowing us to learn more about how things should operate and how we should be acting around others in a number of different situations. We played this role playing team building activity that allowed me to switch places with my manager so I could see what types of situations he has to deal with everyday and how he has to react. I thought I know what my manager did everyday based off of the few minutes per day he is around me and interacting with other managers and employees. I did not know the half of it. My manager is put into so many situations that require a lot of quick thinking and decision making ability. I now have a new found respect for what my manager does everyday because of the team building activities we tired and would not have ever known about that stuff without the team building activities until I made it to his position. By the time I reach his spot the knowledge is not as useful to the company. The team building activities showed me things that I need to understand in order to be a better employee and follower. My better actions will help the management get their job done and the company to make the profits we need to stay employed.

Many people that I have spoken to have never taken part in any team building activities at their place of business. I told them that they must get with their human resources department to find out if they have any team building activities that can be used. If there are not already approved team building activities available to be used then the employees should band together and get with the management and propose the idea. If the employees do the research and are able to display the benefits of the team building activities on the market and why the money would be well spent. The truth is that the majority of the team building activities we tried are great but some of them were not so useful. I got together with my fellow employees and we figured out which ones of the team building activities were great and which ones were not great and detailed explanations of why we felt that way. The managers were very impressed with how we presented ourselves and how clearly we expressed our thoughts. This made them understand what helped us and the company and decided the following week to discard the useless team building activities.

The team building activities are there for the employees to grow and therefore strengthen the company. The employee's opinion is very important because if you force a group of team building activities on people that either do not benefit from the activity or do not want to participate in the specific activity it is instantly useless. From what I have seen, the company's that use team building activities are forward thinking enough to care which ones of the team building activities are the most effective.

The team building activities are for the employees and the management so it should be viewed as such. I am a huge fan of many of the wonderful team building activities and programs available for purchase and customization. Check into them and you will find that they are well worth their weight in gold. We would love to hear about your favorite team building activities used in your place of business.